Mexico bank reform draft eases rules to boost credit, growth

Reuters, MEXICO CITY

The Mexican government wants to boost lending by making it easier for banks to collect on guarantees for bad loans and by giving new powers to regulators to punish firms that do not lend enough, according to a draft of a new banking reform.

The proposal, a copy of which was seen by reporters, is due to be announced this week, and is part of a raft of measures designed to ramp up growth in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

Thrashed out within a pact made between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the leaders of the main opposition parties, the banking reform targets Mexico’s conservative banks, which boast high capital levels, but lend much less than their foreign peers.

“Granting more loans, under more favorable conditions in terms of interest rates, duration and amounts, is a crucial element to efficiently allocating financial resources to boost national economic growth,” the draft says.

To create more legal certainty, it aims to ease the process for banks to take possession of a loan guarantor’s assets in case of default and would streamline the bankruptcy process, which can drag on in Mexico, in part by creating new courts.

Banks would also be subject to periodic lending reviews under the plan, which must be passed by both houses of Mexico’s Congress.

In the reform, the banking regulator would get new powers to punish those lenders that fail to channel enough resources into credit — even limiting banks’ securities trading on their own account if lending falls below the required levels.

The Mexican finance ministry hopes those measures, combined with a revamp of the development bank, will reduce risk and induce banks to lend more and more cheaply, especially to small businesses.

Since taking office in December last year, Pena Nieto has passed a major education reform, and lawmakers in his Institutional Revolutionary Party say a sweeping bill to increase competition in the telecommunications sector should be approved this month.